


Grace

by Feech



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-17 12:41:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29100450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feech/pseuds/Feech
Summary: Number Five doesn't have time.
Relationships: Dolores/Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy), Number Five | The Boy & Grace Hargreeves
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	1. The Longer I Stay With You

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to my husband [J. Channing Wells](http://skin-horse.com/) for the beta read.
> 
> Timeline note: Number Five brought Dolores home before the service in the courtyard.
> 
> ************

Number Five came into the kitchen with his bandaged arm smarting and aching under his sleeve and his fingers tingling disquietingly. All of the kitchen lights were on. Dolores sat on a stool at the kitchen island. Grace stood at the counter. Close at hand she had an opaque yellow glass mixing bowl and an array of baking ingredients—flour and vanilla, and sugar in the same old canister Number Five knew from when he was a kid. Grace wore an apron printed with bright white daisies on a royal blue background, and held a measuring cup in one hand and a table knife in the other.

Number Five had known in his mind that he must be hungry, having had only one white-bread peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich since time-and-space-traveling home. When he saw his mother in an apron and cookie ingredients on the counter, he suffered a violent pang and his hunger was no longer merely an idea. His stomach tightened further in protest when he forced himself to ignore it for a moment and went to Dolores and kissed her on the cheek. "Dolores."

"How was the service?" asked Dolores. She hadn't been able to safely pay her respects in the courtyard, because of the rain.

"Stupid," replied Number Five, "but at least I was there."

He teleported to the counter and reached to slide up the lid of the breadbox. As he leaned into Grace's space he greeted her. "Mother."

"Number Five," Grace said in a measured, significant tone.

It was the first time Number Five's mother had spoken to him personally since he had made his way home. He abandoned the breadbox. "So you’ve noticed I'm back."

"Oh, I've noticed." She set her mixing bowl down on the counter with a decided clunk, punctuating the way she turned to face Number Five. She was very nearly frowning.

"Okay…" He pointed at the pile of baking ingredients. "Are those going to be sugar cookies?"

Grace turned away and bowed her head. "Yes, Number Five. The kind you like. But you have to be patient." Her tone began as rather stern but her voice faded until Number Five could barely catch the words.

"Is something wrong?" he asked. "I mean besides the obvious, but you seemed as okay as could be expected in the courtyard. Do you need to recharge?"

Grace gave the mixing bowl a couple of quarter turns with her fingertips. "I started to, but I couldn't settle down. I'll try again when I'm tired." She reached for a wooden mixing spoon, paused, and a resolute tightening showed briefly at the corner of her lips. She set the spoon on the counter and faced her son. "Number Five, sweetie. We need to have a serious talk."

She stepped close to him and laid her hand on his cheek. "Now, I'm not mad, but we need to discuss the consequences of your behavior."

"I was just looking for something to eat. I went to Griddy's and I didn't even get a doughnut. I don't mean to get in the way of your baking. I was looking for food. Is that butter all for cookies, or can I spread a lot of it on something?"

Grace removed her touch from Number Five's face. "Of course!" She said, brisk and bright. "You must be starved. We'll talk after you've eaten. Luckily I have lots of meatballs in the freezer. I'll finish the sugar cookies later. Supper will be ready in half an hour."

"I'll be back. I can make myself wait that long. I'll get some research done."

Grace said, "Don't forget to wash your hands."

Dolores said, "I'm going to sit in here and spend the time with your mother."

Number Five grunted in acknowledgement and went to his room.

He came back on the dot in thirty minutes and washed and dried his hands at the kitchen sink. The kitchen smelled of oregano, garlic, and rich tomato sauce. Dolores had been served with a steaming, piled-high plate of spaghetti and meatballs. Number Five's mouth watered.

Grace said, "Have a seat, sweetie. Isn't your girlfriend feeling well?"

"Mom, this is Dolores. Haven't you met? I thought, since she was in here with you—"

"Oh, yes, we're acquainted. Klaus has introduced us. She's charming."

"Thank you, Ms. Hargreeves," said Dolores. "You're charming, too."

Grace went on speaking, asking Number Five, "Isn't my cooking all right?"

"The food smells delectable," said Number Five. "And Dolores is feeling fine, right, Dolores? But Mom, she can't eat. She's a mannequin."

"Sure wish I could," said Dolores. "It looks divine, Ms. Hargreeves."

Grace, flustered, reached for Dolores's plate. "Oh, I'm sorry, that was so insensitive of me."

"You can call her Grace," Number Five told Dolores.

"Grace is a lovely name," Dolores said, adding in a low aside to Number Five, "Do you really think I should call her by her first name? She's your _mother_."

"Both of you relax. Neither of you has a thing to worry about. Mom, don't take that plate away. I'll eat hers and mine."

Grace set a bottle of ginger ale at Number Five's right hand. He picked up his fork with his left hand, picked up the ginger ale with his right, put it down again and slid it over to the left side of his plate. He rested his right hand in his lap.

Dolores asked, "What's wrong with your arm?"

"I'll tell you later."

"Tell me now."

"I cut it," he answered.

"I thought you said you were going out for coffee. What happened?"

"I got some coffee." Number Five took a swig of ginger ale and dug into his spaghetti and meatballs. "So Klaus introduced you two. That must have been entertaining."

Dolores said, "Klaus is adorable. I'm not certain whether or not he can hear me. He leaves plenty of time for me to speak, then makes up something for me to say and pretends I'm saying it. He's like a cuddly book of Mad Libs."

"He probably listens to you about as well as he listens to the rest of us," said Number Five.

He finished two heaping plates of spaghetti and two ginger ales—Grace had given him a second one without his asking. Number Five put his plates in the sink, pressed Grace's upper arms and kissed her on the cheek. "Thank you for the homemade food, Mom. That was unbelievably delicious. Nobody cooks like you."

Grace appeared to be touched but amused. "You're buttering me up so you won't get in trouble."

Number Five involuntarily tightened his grip on his mother's arms. "Mom, I am in trouble."

Grace gave a tiny, sympathetic click of her tongue and said softly, "Oh—" She put her hands around his waist and bent her head to nuzzle his hair.

Number Five put his arms around Grace’s neck and laid his cheek on her chest, shuddered and let his mother take his whole weight. Grace stroked his hair. "Poor boy. Don't be worried. We'll talk it over and come up with a fair consequence together. It won't be anything too dire."

She wore a touch of fragrance on her shoulder that reminded Five of the light pink peonies that used to bloom every June in the sunniest part of Pogo's garden. Number Five closed his eyes and mumbled, "The longer I stay with you, the longer I'll go on staying with you."

Grace ruffled the hair at his nape. "Silly little Number Five."

"No. You're a magnet." Number Five straightened out of the hug with a jerk and had to set a foot back, hard, to catch his balance. "There's no time."

"Please keep powerful magnets several feet away from me," said Grace.

"Yeah, okay." Five went around the kitchen island and picked up Dolores.

"Wouldn't you and Dolores like to help me make these sugar cookies?"

"I wasn't planning on it, Mom. Leave them out on the counter for me. I'll come back and get a plateful to eat in my room. I can snack while I do some figuring."

"Which shapes would you like? We have hearts, and all kinds of dinosaurs … I just got some African safari cookie cutters. There are separate cutters for the legs, so you can make the animals stand up."

Number Five had turned away from his mother in order to leave the kitchen, but when he took the next step he hovered his foot for a second, set it down again in the same spot and started over. Dolores, tucked under his arm, noticed. "You used to love those kinds of things as a kid, didn't you."

Grace persisted. "You can stay and help me, and we can talk while we have pleasantly busy hands."

"Yes, do that, Number Five," said Dolores.

"I've got a job to do." Number Five carried Dolores toward the archway leading to the rest of the house.

Grace asked, "How long will your little errand take?"

"Well, Mom, all I can tell you is that if it takes more than a week, the world’s going to end."

************


	2. There Was a Tree Out in the Wood

Number Five had barely paid attention to his old room when he had left Dolores in there before the courtyard funeral. He snapped on a lamp and the shadows it cast made a bit of half-torn old wallpaper border curling out from the wall catch his attention.

He set Dolores on the bed and flinched self-consciously upon noticing the cowboy bedspread. He tried to smooth out a lump in it for her, but there was something solid underneath. Number Five flipped back the covers, frowned, sighed, and picked up a stuffed toy rabbit. It was brown with white spots, criss-crossed pink yarn marked its nose and mouth, and its yarn whiskers had once been stiff, but had begun to bend and unravel. The satiny lining of one of its long ears was threadbare where Number Five as a little boy had rubbed it repeatedly with his thumb. It had a music box winding key in its back.

Number Five looked for somewhere out of sight to set the bunny down, holding it half behind his back. It flopped in his hand, and a couple of notes plinked out of its insides. Number Five gestured apologetically with the rabbit. "As you can see, I was a kid once."

"I met you when you were a kid," said Dolores. "Everybody was a kid once. Well, not me, but I understand that other people were."

Five had thrown some books down in a loose stack beside Dolores on the bed before he went to join his family in the courtyard. Now he fanned out the pile and looked at the worn jackets. They were all boys' adventure books with such plausible plots as travelers to the moon making their way home because an exploded piece of moon crash-landed them on Earth. "Guess I should be grateful to Klaus for taking you to the kitchen instead of leaving you alone in here. Sorry, I should have left you better reading material."

"I just enjoyed looking around your old room."

Number Five set the musical rabbit in his closet and again surveyed his week's worth of identical school uniforms.

"Oh, don't be embarrassed about your old bunny," said Dolores. "Put him back out here on the pillow. What does he play?"

Number Five returned the rabbit to the bed and turned the music box key. The works inside spun with a mechanical buzz and gave a tinny rendition of "And the Green Grass Grew All Around."

Number Five listened for a second; he blinked slowly, his shoulders lowered, his legs felt chilly. He rubbed his jawline—he felt, as if it were physically happening, the way the hem of the cowboy blanket used to tickle his cheek. "It's a trap, damnit. I wish you hadn't asked me to play it! I had no idea how much I had conditioned myself to curl up in bed when this idiotic rabbit plays that stupid old song." He shook his head and pressed the heel of his hand hard against his brow.

The mechanism wound down and Number Five tucked the toy rabbit under the covers—this time with its nose and ears showing—and returned to the problem of his clothes. "I'll put away the outfit I have on and save it for serious occasions, even though it looks exactly like the others. I wish I could have worn a proper suit while Luther dumped Dad's ashes in the courtyard, but that wasn't possible … and if I had known how fast those thugs would show up, I wouldn't have worn this one out to Griddy's. It is now apparently my ‘fighting hired killers at Griddy's’ suit, but I guess that goes with my father's funeral just as well. When I came in from the courtyard, Luther and Diego were brawling with each other like childish ruffians."

"Were they hurt?"

"Don't know. And as long as they're not dead, I don't care." Number Five lifted his chin and unknotted his tie. "When I get done saving the world, I'll celebrate by having a suit tailored. You can pick out my new tie and socks to match."

"Don't worry about your clothes too much," said Dolores. "You look good in anything. I especially admired you in your dinner jacket with mismatched sleeves, black jacket, one white sleeve. Very dashing."

"Well, I couldn't dress down for dinner with you, could I? You would have put me to shame."

"The reason I always had nice dinner dresses is because you're such a good provider."

That made Number Five turn from the closet and give Dolores an adoring look and a half-smile.

He pulled off his jacket and took off his shirt, and when his bandaged arm was exposed, Dolores asked, "You cut it yourself?"

"Yeah. That tracker. I couldn't talk in front of Mom." Number Five toed off his shoes and pulled on a new pair of uniform shorts. "My socks are damp. They got wet in the courtyard." He crossed the floor to the dresser.

Dolores said, "You and your mother will both be happier if you go back to the kitchen later and spend half an hour decorating cookies with her."

"It'd never take half an hour," said Number Five. "Family takes time—they're slow, they talk all the time, want me to talk, they fall behind." He pawed through what he thought should have been his sock drawer, and turned up only crumpled handkerchiefs with the Umbrella Academy logo and a numeral five embroidered on them. "I need a fresh pair. The last thing I need right now is a blister, or anything else holding me up. There will be more fighting."

"Let's say you take an hour, then, decorating cookies with Grace. And because of that, the world ends."

"The world doesn't end this time. My family dying again is not an option."

"Say the Apocalypse happens even though it's not an option. You'll take me and we'll run through time and you and I will end up back at home—I mean the other home—"

"I _want_ to go home. This isn't home. I wish we were home. It's not like being home. I can't take time to talk to anyone, I can't rest, my arm is sore, and I can't find my socks." Number Five patted the top of his dresser as if the action would make socks appear. He checked behind his books, in his undershirt drawer, got on his hands and knees and peered under the dresser. He stood up again and looked around the room. "I was certain I had more than one pair."

"When Klaus came in earlier to get me, he said something about making sock puppets."

Number Five stalked out into the corridor, shouting, "Pogo! I need a pair of socks that matches my uniforms. And a roll of Scotch tape!"

A minute later he hopped over a double-back in time and space and was in his bedroom. He tore off a piece of tape and stuck the curling wallpaper border back against the wall, added two more pieces of tape, and pressed it all down firmly. "I'll be forced to sleep sometime, and I won't be able to sleep with that paper flapping around. It makes me think of … paper … flapping around." He gave Dolores a flicker of a dark, helpless look.

"You don't have to explain to me. I know what you mean."

Pogo had given Five a brand-new pair of socks. Five grumbled as he attempted to work his nail scissors in between the socks to get at the little plastic bit that held them together, without cutting any holes in the knit of the socks. "I don't have time for this!"

Dolores said, "Do you have time to kiss me?" Her tone was teasing, but contained a hint of plaintiveness.

"Yes." Number Five dropped the socks, went through a time-and-space fold from the dresser to the foot of the bed, touched Dolores's chin with his fingertips and leaned in for a kiss on the lips.

"Another. Make it a good one."

He cupped her cheek and lingered this time. He said, "I'm sorry I've been short-tempered."

"I'm going to pretend to be Klaus and say what I imagine he would say: Don't worry about it, honey—it's natural that you would be _short_ tempered."

Number Five drew his fingers gently back down to Dolores's chin, but he turned and glared at the wall. He tightened his jaw, his cheek twitched, and he huffed.

"Why—Number Five, you aren't angry? I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I thought you would think it was funny."

"I don't have time to laugh. I don't have time to cry." Number Five grabbed the socks from the floor and sat on the edge of the bed to pull them on.

"You should take the time, especially now. Things take time. At the end of the world, things took a long time."

"Like the garden," said Number Five.

"I was thinking of the cricket," said Dolores.

Number Five leaned toward her, supporting himself with one hand on the quilted lariats and rearing horses on the bedspread.

Dolores said, "I had never been outside—before the world ended, that is—or had a window open at night, so I didn't know what it was. You told me it was a little, black bug. Well, insects in general I knew all about, at least the ones that came out at night in the department store, or buzzed around in the display windows. But the outdoor cricket made a sound much bigger than itself."

Number Five said, "You asked me how it could do that, and I found a book or two about it, but we still couldn't understand how the noise from one cricket could be so loud."

"It took you a long time to track down where the sound was coming from, and by the time you caught the cricket, you were attached to the little thing. You said it was a violinist, like Vanya."

Number Five said promptly, “It turned out to be a delicious violinist.”

"You say that, showing off your dry humor," said Dolores, "but we spent an awful few days. I didn't know what to do for you. I won't say I was really afraid for you then, because I knew you could cry yourself out and get over it, but I felt so bad for you."

Number Five touched his thumbnail to his teeth and clicked his tongue. "It was the last cricket on Earth." He didn’t look at Dolores’s face.

"It wasn't, and I didn't think so. From what I did know of insects, I didn't think they seemed like the type to be the last of their kind, but you weren't quite rational."

"That's what it felt like. I ate the last cricket."

"And then, late the next summer, crickets chirping everywhere, all around."

Number Five said nothing, but he remembered how startled and frightened he had been to be surrounded by the song of so many living things. At night, sitting up in the dark, listening to them, he had never been more homesick for his brothers and sisters.

Dolores was talking. "You learned to trap them, but you wouldn't eat them. I wished you would eat a few, I begged you to, but you were much too heartbroken because of eating the last cricket alive, to eat any of the other last crickets alive."

"Those little things are hard to catch."

"You learned how to trap them, but all you caught, you let go."

"I was letting them breed."

"You wouldn't even eat a few. You didn't even eat one."

"I ate them the next season."

"No," said Dolores. "You didn't. You spent a whole season more, catching and releasing crickets. It wasn't the heartache and pain of eating the last cricket on Earth anymore. You were being a stubborn boy."

"Well, I had plenty of crickets the next year after that."

"As I was saying. Anything worth having takes time."

"I had plenty of time, back then. Now we have to save the whole world, and we only have a week."

"Take your time and do it right," said Dolores. "As long as I have you sitting by me, here in the bed, I'll finish what I was saying before you ran off to get socks. Say that you and I end up at home, at the end of the world—"

Number Five jumped up, grabbed his shoes, and perched on the edge of the mattress to tie the laces. He tied them rather aggressively.

Dolores raised her voice and went on. "You'll work hard on saving the world, again. You'll keep the whole universe in your mind, and you'll get closer and closer to the tiniest answers, but that will make your thoughts bigger, because the smaller things are the more of them there can be, so you can't keep track of them. You'll try to make it work with notes spread all over everything, but you think better in your head. I'll know by looking into your eyes when the whole thing unravels on you."

Number Five stood and shrugged on his uniform jacket. "I'm waiting for the moral. I'm sure there's a moral. You can skip to it."

"Ahem. Who's telling this story? To resume: It will be too much for you to do. I’ll watch you work. I'll see it in your face when you can't keep track of it anymore, and then you'll have to rest. You'll be lying down, letting your mind go blank. And then you'll say to me, 'I wish I had made cookies with my mother.'"

************


	3. Half-Dreams at the End of the World

When Number Five and his brothers and sisters were growing up, Grace had often recharged at odd moments; it was impractical, with seven little ones to care for, to set a schedule and stick to charging overnight.

Grace never made Vanya go to bed if the others weren't going to sleep, too. Vanya waited up and watched in the entry hall for the Academy members to open the front stoop gate. When Number Five and the others got back from missions that went past bedtime, Vanya would run ahead of them to the kitchen. By the time they got there, sweating or chilled, often both, Grace would be warming milk on the stove. Vanya set out six white mugs with the Umbrella Academy logo on them, and a little, unique, purple mug for herself.

During the day, whenever Grace said anything about maybe thinking of heading up to her conversation chair, and the children didn't have to be in training or in the schoolroom, there was a general rush for the second-floor gallery.

Mother's circular conversation chair had four seats and a central backrest, all covered in golden yellow velvet, and four curved, carved walnut armrests.

Grace would take one child on her lap, and three of the children sat in the other three seats, with a sibling on each of their laps. They called it "watching the paintings with Mother while she naps.”

If, in the initial scramble, Ben wound up in the seat which faced directly away from the paintings, Number Five would trade with him. Ben would sit on Diego's lap and gaze at the pictures, and Vanya would sit on Number Five's lap, or vice versa, and they would admire the banister and listen to the electronic hum of Mother's charger. Now and then they poked each other in the ribs and played with each other's hair and made faces. Often, Klaus would climb over the armrest from Luther's lap to join them. Vanya, Number Five, and Klaus would sit stacked three high, and snort and giggle until Luther made them be quiet, as if they were interrupting the paintings.

By the time they were thirteen years old, Allison and Number Five were the only children who had not outgrown the tradition of sitting with Mother while she recharged. Number Five usually brought a book, but he wouldn’t read it; he simply sat with it open.

On these occasions, Allison would put on a dress and a little string of cultured pearls. She seemed to be going through a phase of thinking that looking at oil paintings while holding perfect posture was especially sophisticated.

In half-dreams during his time at the end of the world, Number Five vividly recalled the light the way it had been in the gallery when he faced outward from the paintings. Whatever the time of day, he easily pictured what it had been like at home; the way everything gleamed gray and even in the pre-dawn, or the darkness with only tiny glints on old finish at night. On sunny afternoons, light through the windows slowly wrapped the pillars in shadow, or penetrated the decorative holes in the balusters and made it seem as if the carven designs turned a corner and suddenly appeared.

Number Five had taken a keepsake from each of the bodies he found in the wreckage of the Hargreeves house. If he had found a cultured pearl necklace on Allison he would have treasured it, but she hadn't been wearing one. He took the necklace he found on her, and had to settle for treasuring that one without knowing whether or not it had been precious to her.

Number Five said quietly, "Mom?"

Grace sat on her conversation chair, still wearing her apron; the bright white daisies returned the glow cast by the picture lights over the oil paintings.

He asked, almost whispering, "You awake?"

"Oh, yes. I was just about to take this out—" Grace touched the earpiece of her charging apparatus "—and go and roll out those cookies. I've been resting while the dough chilled. It should be firm enough by now."

"Have you decided what shapes to make?"

The charging arm collapsed in on itself and receded and Grace looked up at Number Five. "What would you like? I know—we can make your favorite astronaut cookies."

"You still have those cookie cutters? Rocket ships and stars?"

"Of course I do. The last time I used them was over sixteen years ago. Two days before you left. The other children saved you the last planet cookie. We kept it in the clear glass cookie jar. We had hoped you might take it out of the jar sometime when I wasn't looking. I waited three weeks, but then I had to throw it out. Forgive me."

"Mom—I—for what? It was a three-week-old cookie."

"Please?"

"I forgive you for throwing away my cookie."

She brightened. "But you're here now, and I can make you a new batch of space cookies. Oh, Five—" she took hold of his arm and looked intently into his eyes. Five returned her gaze. Grace said, "It's so good to see you. And yet, I feel as if you being here—as if it means something, as if everything—I lack the vocabulary I need—please wait while I retrieve it." Grace's eyes flickered for just an instant, then she focused on Five again with a pleading expression. "I can't find—"

"It does mean something. It means I'm going to fix it."

"I've missed you, sweetie. I wondered how you were doing." Grace gave a pull on his arm, not exerting her whole strength, merely asking him to sit beside her.

Number Five patted her hand. "Mom. I don't have time for this. I can't. I'm not going to talk about how much I missed you. I could tell you forever about how much I missed you."

"That would be nice," said Grace. "The amount of information I have for you about how much I missed you won't take forever to tell, but I could tell it over again."

Number Five's choice as he saw it was between asking Grace to let go of his arm and climbing into her lap. "Mom, please let go of my arm." Grace did so. "Thank you." Number Five straightened up and tugged his jacket hem. "Dolores is waiting for you in the kitchen. She's going to help you with the cookies. I'm sure she'd rather have dogs than the space cookies, so make half of each, all right? Make me one of those planet cookies, the kind you saved in the jar for me. The kind that looks like a lump at first, but if you frost it the right way it looks like a planet with rings. Do you have any of that colored sugar, you know, it looks like sparkles?"

Grace said, "I'm sure we do. But Dolores and I won't ice a single cookie until you come back."

"I might not be back tonight, or at least not until the wee hours. Don't wait to ice cookies for me."

"But, Five, dear, you need your sleep. You may stay up while I bake the cookies and let them cool and we decorate them. Then you brush your teeth and it's right into bed with you."

"But, Mom, the Apocalypse—"

Grace stood and smoothed her apron. "Any Apocalypse that can't get prevented in two hours isn't being prevented tonight. I expect you in the kitchen after that time. Understand me, young man?"

Number Five opened his mouth, but no words came. He lifted his hands to gesture as an accompaniment to the verbal protest he was sure he could work up any instant—and dropped his hands. "Wait for me. I'll put the sprinkles on."

"Good," said Grace. "I'll enjoy spending the time with you. Now you may go and forestall the end of all things for a little while." She ruffled up his bangs. "Scamp."

Number Five went with his mother downstairs to the kitchen.

Grace floured a cutting board.

Dolores asked Number Five, "You're coming back to decorate the cookies, right?"

Number Five gave Dolores a long kiss on the lips.

"Five—your mother!"

"Mmm. Back in two hours," he said. "Or close to it."

"And then, after cookies, bed," said Dolores.

"Nope. Not tonight. Not for me. I'll tuck you in and talk with you for a little bit, but I can't stay in bed long enough to get tired. And don't ask me to wind up the music box rabbit." Number Five teleported to the counter, opened a beige stoneware jar, and found it contained thumbprint cookies with slivered almonds in their strawberry jam filling. "Are these being saved for a special occasion?"

"No," said Grace. "You may have all you like."

Number Five nabbed a generous handful. "I'm not gonna have time to sleep tonight," he said again around a mouthful of crumbly shortbread. "Tomorrow, either. Maybe the next day I can have a naptime, if I can get enough done by then. I love you, Mom." He wiped a crumb from the corner of his mouth, licked a bit of strawberry jam filling from his lower lip, and kissed Grace on the cheek. She turned her head to give him a quick kiss and clasped his shoulder, but he took a step backward through space-time and reappeared out of reach, by the door. He said, "I love you, Dolores."

Grace and Dolores, in unison, responded, "I love you, too, sweetie."

Grace still held her hand up where Number Five's shoulder had been. She hesitantly curled her fingers, slowly lowered the hand and smoothed down her apron.

Number Five stuck two more of the thumbprints between his teeth, made an appreciative gesture to his mother with the cookies he still held in his hand, and saluted Dolores with his free hand. He stepped over the threshold into the darkness outdoors and slammed the kitchen door behind himself.

Dolores sat silent and anxious at the kitchen island.

Grace took the sugar cookie dough out of the refrigerator. "Don't worry, Dolores." She dumped the cookie dough onto the floured board and began to roll it out. "I know my son. Number Five will go through eight or nine sugar cookies and then fall asleep at the kitchen island with another in his hand. I'll carry him to bed. And you, too, if you like. As soon as I get a batch of cookies into the oven, I'd better go and see that there are enough pillows to go around."

"Grace," said Dolores, "I'm glad you're here. I've admired you since before I met you. I know a lot of good things about Number Five that I believe must have come from you."

"Of course," said Grace, stepping on Dolores's words toward the end, "he still has to account for his behavior. I'll have a long talk with him tomorrow, and we'll decide what to do about it. Number Five can't grow up thinking there are no consequences to time travel."

_The End_


End file.
